Saturday, 29 November 2014

A workshop on World War I allowed me, with lots of help from Welsh-speaking friends,* to talk about one of Elgar’s most jingoistic extravaganzas, his 1898 oratorio Caractacus. Caractacus, or Caradog, was the male equivalent of Boadicea, a British
king who led the Welsh tribe of Silures against the Romans. The historian Tacitus reports that he was betrayed by
another Brit, captured, and delivered a rousing oration in the Roman forum. So
the Emperor Claudius let him off. Caradog retired to a sunlit villa on the
Tiber.

"Independence" "Calling the Bravest Man"

But
what is the connection with WW1? Partly because of the popularity of Elgar’s work amongst amateur choral societies, from 1904 on there was a craze
for Caradog plays, with druidic choruses, in schools such as Abergele
County High in north Wales. I have just discovered an extraordinary set of photographs of this school's Welsh-language production. Such theatricals fostered
patriotism and martial valour in the young of Cymru.

When
the Germans occupied Belgium in 1914, the Welsh were invited to defend the
independence of a ‘gallant little country’, as the propaganda put it, just like
their own. Coal mining, which took place
in south Wales, was designated an essential industry, but in Welsh-speaking
Wales, where the slate quarries had closed, there were thousands of unemployed
youths all too easily persuaded to discover their inner Caradog and die at Gallipoli or Ypres.

Abergele County High School's performance (1904)

Welsh youths' identification with Caradog's defiance was made wholly irresistible by the popularity of David Lloyd George, the eloquent Chancellor
of the Exchequer, who had passed the radical 1910 ‘People’s Budget’. In 1911 he stage-managed the theatrical
‘investiture’ of the then Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle, stressing the
Welsh origins, through the Tudors, of the crowns of Britain and the Indian
Empire. This new Caractacus talked the British Empire into the war and in
1916 became the first Welsh-speaking, non-university-educated Briton to become Prime
Minister. If you contemplate the number of Welshmen who lost their lives 1914-1918, it is difficult not to weep after reading this little Caradog-themed song, used during the
recruitment campaign in Lloyd George's homeland:

Friday, 21 November 2014

It's
dark by teatime and yesterday brought the first toe-crystallisingly cold day. Time for a fantasy about cruising the turquoise waters of the winedark sea, the prow of my ship cleaving the white-topped waves. But what ship's
figurehead should I choose? The Phoenicians liked horses’ heads, while the
ancient Greeks imagined their prows as big-eyed boars charging through the
undergrowth. But British sailors administering the empire round the seven seas
named their ships after classical gods and heroes. Their ships' utmost prows
featured carved simulacra representing the figure whose spirit was felt to
animate the vessel. These were the images of classical figures most familiar to
regular seamen and dockers. There is an
enchanting collection in Portsmouth Royal Navy Museum.

HMS Nutty Orestes

Cool HMS Apollo

Meet
the figurehead from HMS Orestes,
launched in 1824. Orestes suffered from madness, which may explain why this
ship was notorious for the riotous behaviour of its dissatisfied seamen. The
guardian deity of HMS Apollo (1805), on the other hand, luminously led his
ship to success in both the 'Opium Wars' with China and the Crimean War.

Agitated HMS Eurydice

Imperturbable Minerva

Poor
HMS Eurydice’s figurehead looks rather disturbed—unlucky in her ancient myth,
meeting death before her time, her ship did indeed come to a sticky end, foundering
in 1878. Yet the gun-boat HMS Minerva
survived wisely for decades and was used in Portsmouth harbour for operations
even after her retirement at a grand old age.

Warrior figurehead of HMS Colossus

But
be astounded by the 3-metre-high
colossal warrior from HMS Colossus, wrecked off the Scilly Isles near Cornwall in 1798. The
Colossus figure was discovered by an enterprising diver named Carmen Stevens in
2001. The Colossus ship's lost cargo included part of the amazing collection of ancient
Greek and Etruscan vases collected by Sir William Hamilton. Some of them are
still lurking on the Cornish sea-bed. Their images could change ancient theatre history. I am
really annoyed that my dodgy retina means I’m forbidden to scuba dive for ever
more.

Saturday, 15 November 2014

With quite impeccable timing I am at a Homer conference in Slovenia on the day England is playing
Slovenia at Wembley in the Euro 2016 qualifier. My own paper clashes with the
kickoff. I have begged the conference convenor to shift things round so we can
watch the match, but he is a serious intellectual who disapproves of ‘organised
sport’ and says no. Slovenia being a tiny country (population: 2 Million), the
conference is a sufficiently significant happening to feature on local TV. But I
don’t think many Slovenian viewers will be
choosing Homer today.

'Did you remember to buy any dog food?'

Ironically
the conference is all about European cooperation: it is a celebration of the
translations of the Odyssey into every official language of the European
Union. The paper I shall be delivering as Wayne Rooney goes into action is
about a medieval Irish version of the Odyssey
called the Merugud (‘Wandering’)
of Ulysses McLaertes. Seriously. It is morally an improvement on Homer’s poem, since there are no suitors involved, not
much sex and little bloodshed.

Being an Irish version, Ulysses spends some time
in a pub; since the Irish are obsessed with their hounds, the role of his dog
is upgraded.There
are no daft recognitions through scars or bedroom furniture: Penelope simply
brings in the dog to see whether she (and it is a she) recognises her long-lost
master. Delightfully, when the dog ‘heard
the sound of Ulysses’ voice, she gave a pull at the chain, so that she sent the
four men on their back through the house behind her, and she sprang to the
breast of Ulysses and licked his face and his countenance.’ Bless.

The Irish Odysseus's dog version 1

The Irish Odysseus's dog version 2

One reason why this Irish text matters (or so I
am arguing) is beecause it is the one that gave James Joyce the idea for his 1922 Ulysses, the foundational novel of both the
Irish Republic and of Modernist fiction. But it
also matters because the dog, who (unlike Homer's) gets
to stay alive, is described in a detail missing from the Greek: '"Two shining
white sides has she, and a light purple back and a jet-black belly, and a
greenish tail," said Ulysses'. To illustrate my talk I am providing two provisional reconstructions copyright and courtesy of S. and G. Poynder respectively.

Saturday, 8 November 2014

Literature
for children was invented simultaneously with the romantic conception of
childhood, in 1805. A very particular child was involved, Mary Godwin (later
to pen Frankenstein; or, the Modern
Prometheus),born in 1797 to Mary
Wollstonecraft and William
Godwin. When her mother died, she became the centre of her father’s emotional
world, even after he married yet another Mary, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom
he set up the M.J. Godwin Juvenile Library imprint.

His daughter Mary Wollstonecraft/Godwin/Shelley

The
Godwins' combined household contained no fewer than five children. They turned
the task of keeping them entertained into a business. In 1805, when little Mary
was 8, Godwin produced his exquisitely illustrated version of Aesop, Fables, Ancient and Modern under the
pseudonym of Edward Baldwin. It transformed the terms of the debate on what children should read by introducing the desideratum
that it should stimulate their imaginative
capacities:

The first real book for children?

Godwin wrote, “If
we would benefit a child we must become in part a child ourselves. We must
prattle to him...we must introduce quick
unexpected turns which... have the effect of wit to children.
Above all, we must make our narrations pictures, and render the objects we discourse
about, visible to the fancy of the learner… I have fancied myself taking the child upon my knee, and have expressed
them in such language as I should have been likely to employ when I wished to
amuse the child and make what I was talking of take hold upon his attention.”

Co-written with sister

Godwin’s next children’s books were The Pantheon; or, Ancient History of the
Gods of Greece and Rome (1806) and History
of Rome: From the building of the city to the ruin of the Republic (1809). More importantly, he commissioned from Charles Lamb a retelling of Shakespeareand the extraordinarily influential Adventures of Ulysses (1808), through which, along with a thousand imitations, generations of children,
including James Joyce, have been entranced by Homer.

Norbury Rabbits & Badgers, Experts on the Greeks & Romans!

Lamb
co-wrote it with his sister, whose name was—wait for it—Mary. She had stabbed
their mother to death and was only allowed out of the lunatic asylum because her
(alcoholic) brother had promised to oversee her. Despite (or perhaps because
of) their emotional states, they really caught the magic and pathos of the Odyssey. On Tuesday I was completely
uplifted by re-experiencing the effect Greek legends can have on seven and
eight-year-olds at Stanford School in Norbury, on the invitation of their
incredible teacher Fiona McGrath. Thanks, Badger and Rabbit classes! You made my
week!

PS: The version of Greek myths and of the Odyssey our own children loved most were the bittersweet strip cartoons by Marcia Williams.